Medicine, Magic, Miracle: Classical Foundations

Pindar, “Pythian Ode” 3. 5 ff (trans. Conway) (Greek lyric, Fifth Century BCE): "Long ago he [Kheiron (Chiron)] nursed gentle Asklepios (Asclepius), that craftsman of new health for weary limbs and banisher of pain, the godlike healer of mortal sickness. His mother, daughter of Phlegyas the horseman, ere with the help of Eleithyia, the nurse of childbirth, she could bring her babe to the light of day, was in her chamber stricken by the golden shafts of Artemis, and to the hall of death went down. For she in the madness of her heart had spurned the god, and unknown to her father took another lover, even though her maiden bed she had already shared with Apollon of the flowing hair, and bore within her the god's holy seed. . . But when upon the high wood pure her kinsmen had set the maid, and the flames of Hephaistos shot their bright tongues around her, then cried out Apollon : ‘No longer shall my soul endure that my own son here with his mother in her death most pitiable should perish thus, in sorry grief.’ So spoke he and in one stride was there, and seized the babe from the dead maid; and round him the blazing flames opened a pathway. Then he took the child to the Magnetian Kentauros (Centaur) [i.e. Kheiron (Chiron)], that he teach him to be a healer for mankind of all their maladies and ills. All then who came to him, some plagues with sores of festering growths, some wounded by the stokes of weapons of bright bronze, of by the slinger's shot of stone, others with limbs ravaged by summer's fiery heat or by the winter's cold, to each for every various ill he made the remedy, and gave deliverance from pain, some with gentle songs of incantation; others he cured with soothing draughts of medicines, or wrapped their limbs around with doctored salves, and some he made whole with the surgeon's knife. And yet to profit even the skills of wisdom yield themselves captive. For a lordly bribe, gold flashing in the hand, even this man was tempted to bring back to life one whom the jaws of death had seized already. With fierce hands swiftly the son of Kronos (Cronus) [Zeus] loosed his anger on these two; his blazing bolt stripped from them both their breath of life, and hurled them to their fate. A man must seek from heaven only that which is fitting for mortal minds, perceiving well the path before his feet, the lot that is our portion . . .

Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 26. 1 - 28. 1 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue, Second Century CE): "Before you reach Epidauros itself [in Argos] you will come to the sanctuary of Asklepios ... There is other evidence that the god was born in Epidauros; for I find that the most famous sanctuaries of Asklepios had their origin from Epidauros. . . .

The sacred grove of Asklepios is surrounded on all sides by boundary marks. No death or birth takes place within the enclosure; the same custom prevails also in the island of Delos. All the offerings, whether the offerer be one of the Epidaurians themselves or a stranger, are entirely consumed within the bounds. At Titane too, I know, there is this same rule. The image of Asklepios is, in size, half as big as Zeus Olympios at Athens, and is made of ivory and gold. An inscription tells us that the artist was Thrasymedes, a Parian, son of Arignotos. The god is sitting on a seat grasping a staff; the other hand he is holding above the head of the serpent; there is also a figure of a dog lying by his side. . .

Over against the temple is the place where the suppliants of the god sleep. Near has been built a circular building of white marble, called Tholos (Round House) . . . Within the enclosure stood slabs; in my time six remained, but of old there were more. On them are inscribed the names of both the men and the women who have been healed by Asklepios, the disease also from which each suffered, and the means of cure. The dialect is Doric. Apart from the others is an old slab, which declares that Hippolytos dedicated twenty horses to the god. The Arikians tell a tale that agrees with the inscription on this slab, that when Hippolytos was killed, owing to the curses of Theseus, Asklepios raised him from the dead. On coming to life again he refused to forgive his father; rejecting his prayers, he want to the Arikians in Italy . . . The Epidaurians have a theatre within the sanctuary . . .

Within the grove are a temple of Artemis, an image of Epione (Soothing), a sanctuary of Aphrodite and Themis (Custom), a race-course . . . and a fountain worth seeing for its roof and general splendour.

A Roman senator Antoninos made in our own day a bath of Asklepios and a sanctuary of the gods called Bountiful. He made also a temple to Hygeia (Health), Asklepios, and Apollon, the last two surnamed Aigyptios (Egyptian). He moreover restored the portico that was named the Portico of Kotys, which, as the brick of which it was made had been unburnt, had fallen into utter ruin after it had lost its roof. As the Epidaurians about the sanctuary were in great distress, because their women had no shelter in which to be delivered and the sick breathed their last in the open, he provided a dwelling, so that these grievances also were redressed. Here at last was a place in which without sin a human being could die and a woman be delivered . . .

The serpents, including a peculiar kind of a yellowish colour, are considered sacred to Asklepios, and are tame with men. These are peculiar to Epidauria, and I have noticed that other lands have their peculiar animals."

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 29.8.16-18 (First Century CE) “Our ancestors did not condemn the act of healing, but rather the pursuit of medicine as a profession; in particular they refused to believe that a profit should be made from saving lives. . . Of all the Greek sciences, only medicine has not yet gained wide interest among us sober and serious-minded Romans. Very few of our citizens are attracted even by its considerable monetary rewards, and those who are immediately begin to act like Greeks. In fact, medical writers, unless they write in Greek, are not accepted as authorities even by the ignorant or by those who do not know Greek. Indeed, people tend to trust advice about their own health less if they understand the language in which it is spoken. Medicine is the only profession, by Jove, where any man off the street gains our immediate trust if he professes to be a doctor; and yet surely, no lie would be more dangerous. But we don’t worry about that; each one of us is lulled by the sweet hope of being healed. And we don’t even have laws against the ignorance which endangers our lives. Doctors risk our lives while they are learning; their experiments lead to deaths; and yet for doctors, and only doctors, there is no penalty for killing a man. In fact, they pass on the blame, reproach the deceased for his lack of moderation and his self-indulgence.”